Pastoral Prayer (August 6) Athens First UMC

[Above is a picture of our Athens First Saturday outreach this past weekend. We had teams working on several projects to bless our community through several acts of kindness. The photo below is our mission team who arrived safely in Honduras on the same day we were serving here in our Athens community. They will be sharing God's love with the people they serve this week. Thanks to our Athens First Saturday outreach and our Honduras mission team, we are living out our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of our community AND our world. Way to go, church!]

O God, thank you for your promise to always stand by us, especially when we find ourselves in wrestling matches over our identity, our priorities, our stewardship, and our legacy. When life seems to have us pinned down, may we always turn to you for strength to be the people you have called us to be.

O God, thank you for these stories of faith from the Book of Genesis. Thank you for these summer Sundays as we see how you were able to fulfill the covenant that you made to Abraham to form a new people through him, a people who would not only love and worship you, but who would also be a blessing to the world.

O God, thank you for reminding us that we are part of this biblical story. You are calling each and every one of us to claim our identity in being your people. Thank you for all of the ways that we were able to be your people in our community through yesterday’s First Saturday outreach. O God, we wouldn’t have been able to do all that we did without each other.

Even as we seek to bless this community through your loving presence, we lift up to you our Honduras mission’s team as they bless the people they serve in that area of the world this week. O God, in this one weekend, we can see how we are living out the mission you have given us to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of our community and our world.

O God, on this Sunday, we especially lift up to you our youth as we begin planning for a new year of youth ministry. And we pray for the many ministries of our church that are starting again in the next several weeks like our music ministry, our new day and time for our Worship U service, our Sunday School classes, our Growing Tree pre-school, our outreach to college students, and so many other ministries that help us to have a loving faith, a learning faith, and a living faith.

We offer to you our individual prayers as well; for those who our on our hearts and minds this morning who are grieving; who are facing medical challenges; who are lonely; who are feeling relational or financial stress; and those who are anxious about their future. O God, like Jacob, may we yield to you, and be the people you have called us to be. We pray this in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray together saying, “Our Father, who art in heaven…”